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I was totally blown away by all the amazing work on here, so I decided to try and make a bucket for a friend of mine.

I've been following the rafalworks plans, and referring a lot to antmans second build as well, so hopefully this will come out ok! although I already think it's a tiny bit smaller than it should be, but I'm going to carry on and see how it turns out.

did quite a bit of work already and only just thought to start posting the progress.

first off I glued the outside of the bucket around the template, and cut it back to get the ledge, this confused me for aaages before i realised what needed doing!

then I added the dome supports.

and started adding the dome sections

cut the cheeks and followed antmans advice to wet them with a water spray first before bending them to shape, once they dried i glued them and masking taped it all in place while it set before trimming the rest of the cheek parts to fit.

and then I cut pretty much everything else out so I could start on the ear pieces and viewfinder

I decided at this stage that I wasn't feeling the view finder or the ear pieces, i think the card I used was too thin and they just seemed a bit thin and wobbly, so after reading antmans thread I decided to try using his approach instead.

Wow! Awesome build so far! I know the ears/rangefinder parts are a bit tricky, but with the proper folding and glueing you can achieve excellent results. I can't wait to see your new approach on the ears. Keep up the great work! If I can be at any help, just let me know.

Thanks RafalFett, amazing work on the templates, I'd never have started this without them!

For the ear parts, I think my error was just using card that was too thin, and rushing, I was impatient to get them done and messed them up - I'm now trying to redo them in a similar way to antmans but still using your templates for sizing and angles.

Some more progress shots, I've cut out and stacked up parts for the ears now, need to sand/cut the sloping angle next.

And I spent some time layering up the viewfinder stalk and the ear part it sits in, I cut the middle layer with a tab so that it would sit into a slot cut out of the rangefinder, I cut a whole stack of slotted pieces to take the stalk and then realised I'd cut the wrong shape! haha, had to start again and cut a load more.

I used the original rangefinder that I messed up as a guide to cut and stack some card to make a new one which will be quite solid, I still have to add some extra layers and then cut and sand it to shape before building the rangefinder outer part around it and attaching the stalk.

Long time no post! had to shelf this project for aaaages...but I've got a little bit of time to spend on it again now...

So I've started to sand the ear pieces, which is a bit tricky because I'm not 100% sure of the angles, so I'm doing it by eye and using ref where I can, they're still a bit rough and ready but some filler and more sanding should take care of that.

Cut extra shapes to stack up for the rangefinder, slotted so the stalk fits in nicely, need to sand these and fit it all together in the right shape.

Because of the way I stacked this bit, I ended up with a couple of really thin strips which tore off when I started sanding, so there's some repair work to be done.

Builds like this just AMAZE me. It's hard enough to buy a kit and assemble and paint it, but to build one from scratch materials?? That's nuts. Kudos to the talented and patient people like yourself who can do this. It looks great so far, really great considering what it is made of. I can't wait to see where it ends up.

Thanks Darkartist, I really hope I can pull this build off, getting to the tricky parts now!

So added some filler to the dome and the cheeks, the dome needs quite a lot of work before it's going to look anything like a dome - there's a lot of uneven areas and dished in pieces that need covering., you can see it's looking pretty messy in the photos, but a bit of sanding and filling and it should start to shape up....hopefully.

Also worked on the ear pieces too, filled and sanded;

Then white gesso over that so I should be able to give them a really light sand and see where the dips are, although at this stage it's pretty obvious.